Is Social Entrepreneurship Being Misunderstood?

Michael D Zakaras

Michael Zakaras is Director of Strategy & Partnerships at Ashoka U.S. He is also co-founder of Ashoka’s ‘All America’ initiative which focuses on pushing the boundaries of social entrepreneurship beyond the traditional coastal circles. Michael has previously worked for Ashoka in Ireland and Central Europe, and has participated on selection panels for social entrepreneurs across the globe, from Montreal to Warsaw to Istanbul. He has a particular interest in food and agriculture policy, criminal justice reform, and more democratic economic models, and writes regularly about these issues and more on Forbes online. He grew up in Brussels, has worked in the California wine industry, and holds a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

In the current issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, Marshall Ganz, Tamara Kay and Jason Spicer make a forceful critique of the field of social entrepreneurship, going so far as referring to this body of work as an over-hyped “distraction.” The authors’ central point is that social entrepreneurship is concerned with technical innovations to largely knowledge problems while our biggest collective problems are actually about power. And power problems, they suggest, are only solved by the kind of democratic political action that fueled the movements for civil rights, public education, environmental protection and more. The field of social entrepreneurship, they claim, either undervalues or deliberately undermines public voice and the role of government in shaping the kind of society we want to live in.

Ashoka was explicitly mentioned so we felt it was appropriate to respond directly. It’s true that Ashoka was the first to name “social entrepreneurship” and “social entrepreneurs” and support their ideas and organizations beginning in 1980 — work that continues to this day in more than 90 countries. But in reading this piece we felt that key points were missed or misrepresented.

Ashoka insight

Most Ashoka social entrepreneurs are concerned with “power” problems, and their hidden power is in giving voice and creating broad pathways for civic action by all — not as different from collective, democratic action as Marshall Ganz, Tamara Kay, and Jason Spicer make it sound.